Warm and windy Christmas Eve day in the capital

CTV Ottawa: Christmas Eve weather record CTV's Megan Shaw with the power outages and extreme heat setting records this Christmas Eve.

The temperatures outside today invited people to do activities on December 24^th they might have never imaged.

Ottawa reached a high of 17 degrees celsius on Thursday.

It was warm enough to open the course at the Falcon Ridge Golf Club.

“I think Santa would be surprised that we would be golfing on Christmas Eve,” said Victor Major, who was golfing with his son Jason.

More than 160 people were scheduled to tee off from the course. Many of the golfers came dressed in red or white and were wearing a Santa hat.

Down by the Rideau Canal many others were enjoying a run or walk in the sun.

Richard Borsos was out in his running shorts and a t-shirt. He said was taking photos along his route to document a Christmas Eve he is certain people will talk about for years.

“I’ve got people shooting basketball hoops, on one diamond they were playing baseball, a whole group of people and people sitting around benches, around town, just soaking up the sun,” said Borsos.

With the extreme heat, high winds contributed to wide spread power outages, including Bayshore Shopping Centre. Merchants scrambled until power returned mid-afternoon.

“It was like so packed earlier and then, this is the second time this happened today, and now the mall is absolutely cleared out – it’s insane,” said Hannah Peeters, who works in the mall.

Tens of thousands of Ottawa residents were without power during Christmas Eve day as winds caused power outages across the province.

The intense gusts knocked down power lines across the city.

At one point there were more than 15,000 Hydro Ottawa customers without power.